PUBLIC TALK: No Sense of Place?

It is over forty years since the publication of George Seddon’s 'Sense of Place', a masterly evocation of the city of Perth and its environs. Perth has grown and changed much in the interim and is now beset with a number of problems with which it grapples. Finding enough water to satisfy the needs of a rapidly-growing population, urban sprawl, vehicle congestion and the continuing destruction of biodiversity-rich banksia woodlands are just a few. Planners struggle to respond to the divergent agenda of developers and environmentalists and many question the sustainability of our current life style. Have we lost our sense, and are we in danger of losing our place?

The annual George Seddon Lecture is sponsored by the UWA Institute of Advanced Studies and UWA’s Friends of the Grounds.

George Seddon AM (1927-2007) was an Emeritus Professor of Environmental Science at the University of Melbourne and a Senior Honorary Research Fellow in English at The University of Western Australia. His books include 'Swan River Landscapes', 'A Landscape for Learning' and 'Sense of Place'. He was awarded the Eureka Prize from the Australian Museum in 1995, the Mawson Medal from the Academy of Science in 1996 and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Planning Institute of Australia.